Self-portraits, remembrance

Spring flowers

Remembrance

Besides the arrival of spring, March is remembrance month for me. On March 6, 2011, a very important person in my life died. Every time this anniversary rolls around, I wonder if I shouldn’t do something special in remembrance, but the truth is, that not a day goes by that I don’t think about all of the good times. That’s how I honor him.

Photography

WSJ ad

I’ve given this some thought before, but today when I saw this ad again in the Wall Street Journal, I decided it was time to go back and look at my photography class self-portraits. I’ve mentioned this class before. It was one of those between semesters short courses, very intense, and I loved it! We had a key to the darkroom and developed our photos. Remember film?

Self-Portraits

One of our assignments was to take self-portraits as objects.

Books from school for a degree in Spanish and Education

Since I was in school, I think this particular photo is self-explanatory. The next one includes a Wedding Ring quilt made by my aunt, a Raggedy Ann made by my mother, jeans, perfume (something that I know longer have in my house), and a book on childcare. This was the other half of my life at the time. School and family.

Miscellaneous objects

More self-portraits

Another assignment was a self portrait as a member of the opposite sex. Hmmm…these could be a bit Freudian.

Tractor

Hammock

Now obviously, at least to me, I don’t plan on weaving any of these images, but the one about objects that represent ourselves is an interesting thought to pursue. Going back to the WSJ ad…can you envision the outline of a head with images of objects that represent you? What would they be? Could color represent those things as well as the actual objects? What about various shapes? 

What objects represent your life right now? Think about what would have represented you in various decades of your life. How have they changed? Have any remained the same? I’m curious and would really like to know.

 

Thinking about color and green chili stew

Basket made in guild program

Color! Isn’t it wonderful?

The dyeing of yarn is almost as good for me as the weaving. Almost. There’s just something magical about pulling those yarns out of the water and seeing beautiful, glorious color!

The other day I read about Tien Chiu’s experiments in what she calls cube dyeing. She has quite the project going, something that I admire, but also know that I would never have the patience to conduct. Really, go check it out.

Quilters like color too

Tien mentions Carol Soderlund, who teaches what look like great workshops on dyeing. Some of my quilter friends have gone to Nancy Crow’s Art Retreats, and that’s where I first saw anything about her workshops.

Facebook strikes again!

Red

Ever take one of those quizzes on Facebook? I succumbed the other day, and although I really don’t agree with the analysis of my personality, I like the color shown. A weaving of some sort? I’ve actually been thinking of a series of tapestries based on color. You can see what color you get here.

And then there’s the finishing

I’ve got these itty bitty 5-inch pieces that need to be finished, several of which are in shades of blue. As I was pinning them to a press cloth thingy for steaming, I thought about stars. So, I played around with pin heads.

Sky

And now for green, as in green chili stew 

My friend Claudia True publishes a calendar each year with copies of here paintings and recipes. If you sign up for her newsletter, you receive a free mini cookbook. At some point, I received a recipe from her for Green Chili Stew. My son and daughter-in-law have developed their own recipe for same, so I adapted parts of both recipes and made my own. Now it seems to be a small compulsion. I have two quart jars in the fridge, so that’s what I have each day for lunch. Maybe I’ll be sick of it soon and move on to other recipes. What’s your winter go-to recipe?

Finally, weaving again!

Ikat yarn drying. Why do those whites look so yellow? 

Finally

Yep, section 3 has been measured, tied, dyed, balled up, loaded onto shuttles. Let the weaving begin! I did try a few picks, and it works! Here’s hoping all the other sections are correct. They were when I checked, but who knows if my brain was in the correct place. My only other news is below. Been a dull week full of “have-tos.”

Amarylis

Frustration, new starts, plus clouds

Section 3-again

Big roadblock

The piece on the loom was moving along at a pretty good clip–until I hit a speed bump! Section 3 of the ikat yarn was next, but it just wouldn’t work, no matter how I tried to manipulate it.

Darn!

So, I got the cartoon out and compared the yarn to the cartoon, and guess what? The positive and negative spaces were totally reversed. Black was white, white was black. Believe me, I tried everything before reaching the conclusion that it would just have to be done again. No getting around it. I checked sections 4 and 5. Yes, they are correct. So, I started measuring the yarns.

While waiting …

The measuring and tying is done, so dyeing is next, maybe today. (I actually had a social event on Tuesday). But while not weaving on the big loom, the small loom inspiration is coming together in my head. I have several ideas to work on, including a few that go with a series I’m planning.

And then there are the clouds

Last week I was driving home after visiting my mother, when I looked up and noticed these really wonderful clouds. They were like waves across the sky, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I took the next exit and stayed on the service road so I could take pictures. Having not mastered the panorama setting on my phone, I just took individual shots and pieced them together in Photoshop, very obviously.

Wavy clouds

Then I took one bitty section and made it black and white.

Black and white clouds

And played around with ridiculous colors. 

Color, anyone?

Can this be turned into a weaving? What do you think?

Ikat yarn

Ready for shuttles

When I’m not weaving, I take a break and wind balls of ikat yarn. I always think these yarns look so interesting when they’re balled up like this. These yarns are just waiting to be put on the shuttles. Notice the labels? The ones on the inside of the ball say #3 top right. Substitute #? what  ever section it is. The top right label indicates that that is the one to start winding on the shuttle first because that is woven last.

Shuttles

High Desert Weaving shuttles directly from their website

Speaking of shuttles, I bought a 16.5 in shuttle from High Country Weaving. They are beautifully made, but use quills instead of bobbin. The shuttle comes with one quill with instructions and a pattern for making more. But, and this is a big but, I lost the instructions and the pattern. All of those balled up yarns would be perfect for this big boy. Here’s a quote from their website:

The 16.5″ shuttle will hold more than 45 yards of a bulky rug yarn, such as that sold by Weaving Southwest.

Now, after seeing all those balled up yarns, I have a concern that this piece is going to turn out way too big. But it has to be what it is because of the design. Gee! Another issue discovered while weaving!

Is it already Wednesday?

waste basket of untied ikat tape

 

Tied/Untied

Is it Wednesday already?

Seems I can no longer keep up with what day it is in the week. Yes, it’s Wednesday. Yes, my blog post should be ready. No, it is not ready. What’s going on here?

Ikat untying

Just in case you were wondering,untying ikat tape from the yarn takes almost as much time as untying it. And then there’s the winding onto shuttles. Over the years I have learned that I prefer certain shuttles for this, one called a poke shuttle. I always overfill them because there does not seem to be a good place to cut the continuous weft. 

Filled shuttles with section one

Labeling

Someone asked me about keeping up with which shuttle is which. It just requires labels, many labels. When I’m measuring the yarn for ikat, I label where I start with “bottom left.” When I end the section, I label it “top right.” When I wind onto the shuttles, I start with the top right end, so that I can begin weaving with the bottom left. You have to weave in the direction you measured the yarn, or the pattern will not match up.

You can see in the image below that I am using a ski shuttle. I really don’t like it very well for this, but my other shuttles were full, and there was still a bit of this section of weft left to wind.

Ikat in progress

Weaving ikat

The actual weaving part of ikat goes fast, plus it keeps my interest because it requires attention to matching the pattern and the selvedges. This means that quite a bit of the piece is already woven.

This is such a close-up that you can see how the edges of the color don’t seem even near the right spot, but when it is seen without enlargement, the edges look fuzzy, but not so extreme as this detail.

Detail

Maybe I’ll be finished by the next time Wednesday rolls around.

Disaster! Kind of

No, not a world, or even national disaster

Progress after the disaster. Find the broken warp.

This is my personal weaving disaster. I sat on my loom bench yesterday, only to discover a broken warp, and upon further examination, I discovered several frayed ones. Since I was really not willing to lose all the work on this piece, I slept on it before making a decision about what to do. I decided to weave to the farthest point in the weaving, hand beating rather than using the loom beater, then to advance the warp way past the problem and start the weaving again. Maybe I’ll end up with a triptych. Or not. An experiment of sorts.

Warp advanced past the problem

Listening and weaving

In this picture, you can see that the first section has been completed, and the warp advanced. Another piece has begun with waste yarn. Next step, some knots, a few shots of warp, some soumak, and the weaving begins. On the cartoon below, you can see where first section ends.

Stopped the first piece at the red arrow

While all of this weaving is going on, I am listening to Burying the Honeysuckle Girls. While listening, I am reminded of a book I read years ago called One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, a period piece.

Many details have flown from my memory, but someone came up with a plan to give 1000 white women to the Indians to appease them and perhaps stop the many battles. But where to get the women? From the insane asylums, of course.

This was during a period of history when the men (husbands or fathers or brothers) could commit women family members to an institution when those women did things that didn’t suit the men. Like not marry someone, or do something embarrassing, or … whatever.

The women were chosen for this project, and because of how women were committed, some were not actually insane. And the tale goes on from there telling the story of one particular woman, through her journals. Those journals are so realistic that I had to remind myself that they are fiction.

Back to the Honeysuckle Girls

This story switches back and forth from present day and the thirties. The setting for the thirties is in a rural area of the mountains in Alabama, where men would still commit their women when they displeased them. The present day setting is in Birmingham, Alabama, where the main character is trying to save herself by finding what happened to her ancestors. At first I wasn’t sure the girls were going to hold my attention, but as it progressed, it does.

Read any good books lately?

I forgot!

What”s on the loom

Crazy time

It’s been so looney tunes around here, I forgot what day it was. Between spending more hours in the studio and setting up a new computer for my mother, well, you get the picture. All the same, I am really pleased that skipping the computer until afternoon means that I’m getting more work done–with enthusiasm!

Always the finishing

I’m spending my evenings doing finish work and/or working on a small piece. Unless I am too tired, that is.

Does a clean studio mean a clean mind?

Unfortunately, I am now into the cleaning the studio portion of my week. That means that anything that pops into my head is so much better and must be attended to RIGHT NOW. Now why would that be, when I find such treasures as this one? There’s lots of stuff in there that I don’t want anymore, so I’m putting it all into a big bag to sort through and donate later. I’m having a visitor later this week, so it should look at least a little bit presentable.

Beaded emboridery

Studio time

Just starting the orange crosses

Crosses in progress

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red stripes and broken warp

Here comes purple

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Changing habits

I’m trying to change a habit or two or a million, but the for today, the main new habit is getting into the studio before checking email, etc. Because I don’t just stop there. It just goes on and on, checking one thing after another. A complete time-suck!

My new habit is getting into the studio immediately after coffee and newspaper time. That means it’s still dark when I take those steps. Often, lately, that means starting a fire for warmth. The form this habit has taken for now is to weave for an hour, have breakfast, then 2-3 more hours in the studio.

Getting stuff done

I am also doing other stuff around the house before getting to the computer. In fact, I am writing this right now at around 11:50 AM and have still not checked my email. For whatever reason, once I get to that email place, I’m a goner as far as accomplishing much. What’s up with that? Does anyone else have that problem?

Finished! Well, except for all the warp ends, steaming, fixing those broken warp ends, etc. Perspective is off in the photo.

Choosing color

You can see the weaving progress in the images above. When I first started those red stripes, somehow in the middle of the night, I became convinced that they were the wrong color of red, that I needed to dye some “deep red.” The next day, I dug out a bit of leftover deep red, and realized I had the best color after all. When I looked at the dye formula for the stripe I had woven, it was a combination of deep red and scarlet.

Around the house

Have you heard of Instant Pots? That amazing all-in-one pot that sautés, slow cooks, pressure cooks, makes yogurt, and changes the sheets? I had been looking at one, but couldn’t make myself click the button and buy it because of the price. Right before Christmas, Amazon had one of those one-day sales, so at half price, I clicked. It’s taken a bit to embrace this pot, but I think I finally have.

I have a stove top pressure cooker, and I like it. However, my brain requires constant vigilance with it. I like the little pressure thing on top that jiggles and makes noise. I have to set my timer because otherwise, I go walkabout. And I don’t dare get too far from the stove.

I finally got brave enough to try the pressure cooker with the Instant Pot. It’s wonderful! When you want to make a stew, you just press the button for stew. It pressure cooks it for a preset time and keeps it warm when the time’s up, all done silently. I cook pintos on a fairly regular basis, and there’s a bean button for that. Today I’ve cooked garbanzos for hummus. Yum!

Experimenting

I’m still experimenting with some small pieces that I hope will be at least kind of three dimensional. What’s going on in your part of the world? Working on any habits? New something around the house? Cooking anything different? 

 

 

More cross work

On the loom

They’re baaack

Well, I’ve written about this before. Crosses. The design below has been modified during the weaving process, mainly because of mathematical errors. Yep, no mathematician here! Then there was digging all of the yarns out, finding enough of the various colors to complete each section. Believe me, I have been counting square inches and weighing yarns to make sure there was enough to weave a stripe. Because blacks might look alike, when you weave different dyelots, there’s always a line of demarcation. That won’t be a problem with the stripes because each stripe can be a different dyelot.

Crosses, stripes, border

The middle section is a totally different story

I needed more black that matched for the middle section. First, I looked at two different local yarn stores, but found nothing suitable. That means dyeing. And it’s been really cold. Now, I apologize for that statement to all of you who have had all the really cold and snowy weather for the last few weeks, but for North Texas, it’s been cold. 14 and 16 degrees at night is unusual for us. Highs in the 30s–maybe--is cold for us. And I had to clean the dyepots before doing the dyeing. 30 degrees! They were really in need of cleaning, but not as bad as the image suggests. Lots of reflection going on in the stainless steel sides. The actual dyeing was a relief; at least it involved fire!

Cleaning the pots

These crosses were originally designed with each arm being 4 inches wide, with 2 inch posts. Not sure about the vocabulary here, so here’s an illustration. However, that design changed as I mapped things out so that they would fit on the width of the warp. The cross width is a little over 3 inches, but the other numbers are the same.

cross measurements

Frankly, after the holidays, house guests, it’s hard for me to get back into the swing of things, but the weaving is back, as is the hard weaving bench. I’m also trying to spend some time working on some 3-D pieces. Those are pure experimentation, so we’ll see if they ever see the light of day.